Took the Kids Up (First Time)

Things fell into place this past weekend to finally take the kids up in the
airplane. Their grandma's birthday, a nice high-pressure over New York, our
original weekend plans falling through and relatively cooler weather all
made for the right opportunity to cut a 6-hour car ride down to a 2-hour
plane ride from Long Island (FRG) to Lake George (Ticonderoga 4B6) for a
surprise visit.

What a flight. Took off at 8AM Saturday to avoid any low-level bumps of
which we experienced exactly zero. Filed IFR for that little extra traffic
avoidance assurance although only one aircraft was called out to us. The
one-year-old fell asleep on climbout just like I've read about in so many
posts in this newsgroup. She kept her earplugs in almost the entire time. My
three-year-old kept his headset on the entire time as well with a little
help from the "Dora the Explorer" audio off the DVD player pumping through
the music input (marking its first-ever use).

With regards to the return flight, the flip-flop of forecasts from Friday
through Sunday for the Long Island area created some anxiety on my part
while staying at my folk's house in Ticonderoga. But all was well in the 8AM
forecast Sunday morning reinforcing my Forrest Gump-ish belief that "you
never know what yer going to get" until the day you fly. As of Saturday Aug
6th, a warm stationary front was threatening to push up from the south over
Long Island (but I thought it was "stationary??").

I took the advice from another in the group to put "Infant on board.
Requesting shallow descents" in the remark section of the flight plan. A
couple of controller's along the way asked how the baby was doing which
added to the enjoyment of the flight--especially for my wife. Although we
didn't end up using any special handling, it was great to know that the
controllers were keeping an eye out for us. On a side note, my experience
with NY controllers has been 99% good and I'm convinced their reputation for
being cut-throat is only from the fact that they're so damn busy all the tim
e.

It will still be a while until I take them up in IMC and probably not when
there's an airmet for turbulence until I get more experience and the kids
get a little older. I want to be careful not to sour their taste for flight
with a bad experience early-on. By that time, I'll have hopefully saved a
few pennies to get the Garmin 396 to help alleviate my IMC anxiety level as
well.

What normally would have been a car ride eating up the entire usable day
became a pleasant GA trip that allowed us to hit the beach on Sunday
afternoon while marveling at the fact that we were 300 car-miles away just a
couple of hours ago.

Only in general aviation.

Marco Leon




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